School in 1951

School started last week in our county—way too early, as far as I'm concerned. After spending over fifty years on one side of the desk or the other, I'm kind of glad I'm no longer involved in school.

My educational involvement began when I was a few weeks shy of turning six. That's when I started first grade at Huff Lane Elementary School in Roanoke, Virginia. We didn't have public kindergarten or preschool in those days. All our early education happened at home where we mainly watched grown-ups and tried to emulate them.

Both these pictures are labeled 1951—6 years old.

I think the first picture is 2nd or 3rd grade, though.

Huff Lane was almost a brand new school—it had opened the year before on property that used to be part of the Huff farm. (I blogged about a third grade trip to that farm here.) On the first day, Mama walked me the three blocks to school and took me to Mrs. Willhide's room. Mama told me she'd wait in the front hall (which was quite a distance from my classroom) and walk me home to lunch. Sure enough, she was there. And she was there when school was out, too.

I was unimpressed with school—the only noteworthy thing that happened the first day was a girl named Jean wet her pants—and I asked Mama when I could quit school. She said I had to be sixteen; that was the age she quit to go to work during the depression. Quitting at sixteen became my goal.

Before the week was out, I caught Mama in a lie. She wasn't in the front hall. When I went through the front door, I spotted her coming up the sidewalk. Because  I refused to walk with her, it wasn't  long before she found a sixth grade girl who lived on Dorchester to walk me to and from school.

I think I took my lunch for a while, at least until I was pretty secure about how to get home. Then I started walking home to lunch again—but by myself. There were only two ways to go home: right on Huff Lane (a gravel road) for a block, then left onto Floraland for two blocks; or straight on Dorchester, right onto Grandview, and left onto Floraland; or straight on Dorchester and left at our vacant lot. All of the ways meant crossing two streets, but there was almost no traffic. Sometimes I didn't see a car at all.

But back to lunch. The Huff Lane cafeteria was pretty depressing. The linoleum-covered tables and benches folded out of the wall because the cafeteria was really a "multi-purpose room." There was a stage with red curtains at one end where we had assemblies.

The lunch ladies made the hot lunch from scratch, so sometimes the cafeteria smelled pretty good. This was before the low-fat insanity that overtook the nation, so the food was real—not processed—and tasted good. Kids were encouraged to drink whole milk, but I didn't like milk. I never bought a school lunch because it included milk. If I didn't go home for lunch, I carried my lunch in a paper sack (and later in a Roy Rogers lunchbox) but would sometimes pay a nickle for a Dixie Cup (and its included wooden spoon) or a chocolate-covered ice cream bar.

My main accomplishment in first grade was moving from the second reading group to the first. I think I'd been put in the second group because I was so shy that I never volunteered to read. I also rarely raised my hand because it didn't seem to matter—Mrs. Willhide eventually called on everyone, regardless of whose hands were waving wildly or not waving at all. I knew my turn woud come, and it generally did. But every time I was asked to read aloud, I had no trouble "sounding out" the words in the "Dick and Jane" reader and read fast and fluently.

Mrs. Clark, my 4th grade teacher.

A corner of the school is behind her.

I attended Huff Land School through 6th grade, and we always started the day after Labor Day. We always wore our new school clothes and changed to our play clothes as soon as we got home. Then we went out to play. I don't guess many kids do that nowadays.

Times have changed, and Huff Lane School was bull-dozed down a few years ago to make way for a hotel.

~

Eighth Grade at WFHS

I posted last month about leaving my neighborhood and going across town to school at Lee Junior High for my seventh grade year. For my eighth grade year, I was back in the neighborhood—sort of. Anyhow, William Fleming High School was close enough for me to walk. Here's a picture of the school I copied from my eighth grade yearbook.

This particular incarnation of WFHS on Williamson Road doesn't exist anymore. (Breckinridge Middle School is now in the same location, but it looks a lot different.) In my junior year, the new Fleming opened off Hershberger Road, which was in the county at the time, so we referred to the building above as the old Fleming. A few years ago, the new Fleming I attended was replaced by a newer Fleming.  

This 1940s building was solid and substantial, kind of like Lee Junior, but not as imposing. There were two front doors, a couple of side doors, and a few backdoors so access was pretty easy. The office area was to the back, which meant visitors had a long walk down the hall to get there. If an intruder wanted to enter, the door was always open and he'd have to travel for a ways before anyone would notice. To my knowledge, WFHS never had any problem with intruders. We had a bomb threat or two while I attended there, which meant everyone was herded out back where any terrorists around would have had no trouble picking us off. Of course, this was 1958, so there were no terrorists (just communists in Russia who wanted to undermine our entire American way of life, but they didn't bother with Roanoke).

The library was on the first floor—to the right of the picture. The science classes were on the second floor—kind of above the library. The windows let in lots of natural light and they actually opened (no air conditioning). It would have been easy for anyone to get in—or out of—the ground floor windows. I can remember once a cat jumped through the window and wandered around.

The school was so crowded that three different schedules were needed to accommodate everyone. Early schedule began about 7:40 AM for those who wanted to begin school early (or take more than six subjects); regular schedule began about 8:35 (which most students preferred), and late schedule began about 9:30. All the eighth graders were on late schedule, which meant we didn't get out until 4 PM or thereabouts.

There were no school busses. Roanoke City Schools weren't concerned about how we got to school, just so we got there. Students either walked or rode a city bus. I walked. My house is marked in red below; where WFHS was located is in yellow. Depending on with whom I was walking, I had several options for routes. Usually we cut through some back yards and walked the back streets.

Here's a picture of part of the eighth grade—I'm in the second row from the bottom, third picture in.

You will note that we were a bland looking bunch. No one had piercings (pierced ears came years later) and no certainly one sported a tattoo. Clothing was modest—puritanical by today's standards. Take a look at the  how well covered the cheerleaders were.

Also note they they encouraged violence ("let's fight!"); indeed, many of their cheers involved "beating" the other school. But they were modest about it. 

How times have changed in the last 54 years!

~

Field Trip—1953

Fifty-five years ago, on a cloudy November day like today, my third grade class went on a field trip to a nearby dairy farm. I can remember wearing my gray winter coat with a fur collar—a coat I'd inherited from my older cousin Marty and would soon pass on to my younger cousin Judy.

I wrote about this experience several years ago. One version appeared as a commentary in The Roanoke Times several years ago. I used the version below for a presentation at a Lake Writers' memoir workshop.

View from the Schoolhouse Window
© 2002 by Becky Mushko

In 1951, when I started first grade, Huff Lane Elementary School in Roanoke, Virginia, was still new. It had been built the previous year to accommodate all the kids whose families lived in the post-Korean War housing development across the road from the schoolyard.

On the other side of the schoolyard, right where the asphalt playground ended, was the edge of the civilized world: a huge field was where Pete Huff's farm began. Sometimes wheat grew in the field, sometimes corn, and sometimes alfalfa, but the field was always forbidden territory to us as we played on the playground. When we climbed to the top of the jungle gym or the hot metal sliding board, we could catch a glimpse of the dairy barn and the cows in the distance.

In 1953, when I was in the third grade, we stepped off the edge of the world—into the field—and took a field trip to that dairy barn. That late fall afternoon, we tromped across the cut-over cornfield to the barn for a close-up view of the Holsteins munching hay while milking machines made strange noises.

For years afterward, I believed that a field trip always involved walking through a field. Consequently, all the other field trips I went on—which involved climbing onto a bus and eventually going into a building—were disappointments.

In the 1950s, each school day started with morning devotions. We stood up, faced the flag, and pledged. The phrase "under God" hadn't been added then, but we didn't need it because we also said the Lord's Prayer. That's how we knew God's name—it was Hallow Ed, as in "Hallow Ed be thy name." And we always sang. Sometimes we sang "America," and sometimes we sang my favorite, "America the Beautiful."

One morning in the mid-50s, while we sang "America the Beautiful," I looked out the window and actually saw the "spacious skies." They were bright blue. I looked at Pete Huff's field—now planted in wheat—and saw the "amber waves of grain." Beyond the field, I saw the "purple mountains' majesty" of Fort Lewis Mountain and Brushy Mountain in the distance. In front of the mountains, the breeze rippled through the field, which might indeed have been a "fruited plain." That day, God indeed "shed His grace" on me and gave me a glimpse of the America we sang about.

Things have changed since I attended Huff Lane School. Now it's called "Huff Lane Microvillage," whatever that is.

I doubt the students ever sing "America the Beautiful." After all, it contains a reference to God, so the song is no longer politically correct. I know kids haven't said the Lord's Prayer at school for years, so they probably don't know Him as Hallow Ed.

The asphalt playground has been replaced by grass. The jungle gym and sliding board are gone. A high gray wall with mountains painted on it separates what's left of the playground from what is no longer farm.

Whenever I drive past Valley View Mall, where Pete Huff's farm used to be, I pass close to my former school, and I feel a little sorry for the students behind the wall who'll never see the world the way I once did and who can never step off the edge of the playground and take a real field trip.

~

This is a picture of my fourth grade class at Huff Lane School in Roanoke, VA, taken a year or so after the field trip but around the time I saw what I sang. The teacher was Mrs. Ellen Clark. I'm in the striped dress in the center of the picture. Beside me is Dorothy Boyd, who was a wonderful artist. I've forgotten a lot of classmate's names, but I think Mary Elizabeth Van Liere is to my right and beside her is Diane Gross. Linda Wills is in front of Mrs. Clark, and Patricia Taylor is beside her. H.W. Scott is at the opposite end off the row from me. Behind him is Sue Jennings. I think Mary Huddleston is beside Sue. In the front row on the left side are Peggy Carroll, Neil Robertson, Brenda Keaton, a girl whose name I can't recall, and Donna Lovell (in the Brownie Scout uniform). The picture was taken in the library.

~
Update: Huff Lane School no longe exists. It was torn down a few years ago.